It is a usual procedure for a surgeon to employ one or more of his fingers to temporarily stop the bleeding in the depths of a wound from a laceration in an artery or vein. This procedure gives the surgeon time to remove any accumulation of blood from the wound area by the use of appropriate vacuum devices. Upon such removal of blood which usually obstructs the surgeon's view of the wound area, he is able to identify the character of the wound, and by partial and/or intermittent release of finger pressure from the wound, the bleeding may be attended to by hemostatic suturing or clamping. The shortcomings of this procedure include: the surgeon's fingers are part of a relatively bulky hand that must enter the wound cavity to a point where it obscures the surgeon's visibility; and the configuration of the surgeon's finger may not be appropriate because of the length and/or shape of the wound.
The present invention provides a novel surgical finger assembly that is especially adapted for controlling the bleeding from a blood vessel in the depths of a surgical or trauma induced wound, without requiring the entry of a surgeons hand into the wound cavity. Further, the surgical finger assembly of the instant invention may be selected from a plurality of different sized and configured surgical finger assemblies, thus permitting the surgeon to select the configuration of such an assembly most appropriate to a particular wound configuration to be attended to.